Apple’s New M3 MacBook Pros & iMac; Microsoft Begins Blocking ‘Unauthorized’ Xbox Controllers & Accessories; X Now Officially Worth Half What Elon Paid for It; Boston Dynamics Robot Dog Gets a Voice

Apple streamed their ‘Scary Fast’ event last night, and it at least lived up to the latter part of its name…the event was over in about 30 minutes! New M3 chips powering new 14 inch and 16 inch MacBook Pros were revealed, including a new cheaper 14 inch MacBook Pro powered by the base (but still very powerful) M3 chip. The cheapie model starts at just $1599, BUT it only has 8 gigs of memory, and just two USB-C ports. Apple mercifully dropped the 13 inch MacBook Pro with the maligned Touch Bar. Actually, I have one as a backup yet…and never had an issue with the Touch Bar…the terrible ‘Butterfly Keyboard’ is a different story. Try typing fast with a deadline on that awful thing! Whew! Back to the new stuff…9to5mac.com reports that it’s 20% faster for the base chip than prior models, and the M3 Max will support 128 Gigs of RAM. Battery life 22 hours…wow! Apple claims same performance plugged in or on battery. Did we mention the new black color? Yeah, it looks really cool. The Pros will be available next week. 

Apple also showed off a new 24 inch iMac…well, with a new M3 chip anyway. The computer is basically the same, except about 30% faster. You can order today, and it ships November 7th. The entry level model is $1299. 

Microsoft has started blocking ‘unauthorized’ Xbox controllers and accessories. According to theverge.com, a warning was spotted last week…and now some users are seeing a ‘connected accessory is not authorized’ message pop up. The Verge points out that it’s unclear if Microsoft is trying to target cheat devices, or whether the Xbox maker is trying to push its official partner program. Apparently from the time you get the message, you have 2 weeks to use the so-called unauthorized accessory, then the Xbox will block its use. 

It was widely known at the time Elon Musk bought Twitter that it was worth a lot less than he paid. Now, the official word is X is worth less than half what he paid for it…down from $44 billion to $19 billion. On Monday, employees at X were awarded equity in the company at a valuation of $19 billion, or $45 per share, according to internal documents. The pricing was first seen and reported by Fortune. The $19 billion may be optimistic, too…one of his big investors, Fidelity, thinks X is worth 65 percent less than when he bought it. 

Boston Dynamics has done some amazing things with its robot dog, Spot…not to be confused with the critters West Coast car dealer Cal Worthington used to pass off as HIS dog spot! Now, the robotics company has been training Spot to talk using an AI model that incorporates ChatGPT and other AI models. Bgr.com says they are using a Spot robot as a talking tour guide to show off the Boston Dynamics campus. I wonder if they will license the voice of actor John Leeson, who gave voice to Doctor Who’s robot dog K-9. It would be fun to hear it say ‘Affirmative, Master!” If you ever watched Doctor Who, you may have heard that in Leeson’s voice instead of mine!

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Meta-Ad Free Facebook & Instagram Subscriptions in Europe; Biden Signs Exec Order With Rules for Generative AI; ChatGPT for Accounting-Fuzzy Math; Fall COVID Vax Rate ‘Abysmal’

Under pressure from the European Union over ad tracking and targeting, Meta has rolled out an ad-free subscription version of Facebook and Instagram in the EU. TechCrunch.com reports that the new subscription will be available next month. the fee it plans to charge users to escape its tracking and targeting (i.e. the ad-free subscription) is €9.99/month on web or €12.99/month on iOS or Android per linked Facebook and Instagram accounts in a user’s Accounts Center. After March 1, 2024 it also says an additional fee — of €6/month on web and €8/month on iOS or Android — will apply for each additional account listed in a user’s Account Center. That means folks there with both a personal and public page will pay some hefty fees to continue using the platforms. Even for a user with just one account (on either Facebook or Instagram) the cost for protecting their privacy from Meta’s tracking and profiling would be almost €120 per year (for web use) or just over €155 (on mobile). 

President Joe Biden signed an executive order providing rules around generative AI, ahead of any legislation coming from lawmakers. According to the verge.com, the EO has 8 main goals:  to create new standards for AI safety and security, protect privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for consumers, patients, and students, support workers, promote innovation and competition, advance US leadership in AI technologies, and ensure the responsible and effective government use of the technology. Also in the last couple days, the United Nations has come out with guidelines designed to get the most for humankind out of AI with the least danger…but of course, the UN ones are voluntary, so don’t expect much from them. An executive order isn’t permanent though…and only lasts as long as Biden is in office should the next president decide to reverse it. The administration notes that there are members of Congress working on permanent legislation right now. Industry observers said the executive order is at least a step forward in providing standards around generative AI.

The latest greatest tech thing ever is generative AI. Virtually every tech company is working on theirs or using one that is already out like ChatGPT. A word to the wise: it may be ok for language, but for accounting…not so much. While the latest iteration of the chatbot has passed all three notoriously difficult exams for medical school, got through the law school bar exam, and passed an MBA exam from the Wharton school of business at the University of Pennsylvania….there is one area where if falls short. Math…specifically, accounting. Zdnet.com says a professor from BYU assembled some 327 co-authors from 1856 educational institutions in 14 countries to come up with questions for the chatbot. Typical of a comprehensive accounting examination, questions ranged across all major topics. such as financial accounting, auditing, managerial accounting, tax, and others, and were of different types (multiple choice, short answers, true/false) and difficulty levels. The results were unequivocal: ChatGPT clocked a 47.4% result which, in and of itself, was not that bad. Students, however, scored an overall average of 76.7% and easily bested the machine. The areas where the large language model stubbed its toe the worst were financial problems, and managerial assessment problems. Good to keep in mind that the LLM relies on probability to determine the next word or character. Accounting relies on accuracy, not probability. You don’t want to use it on your bank account…especially if your income varies a bit…or you may come up overdrawn!

An immunization advisor at the CDC has called the current rate of COVID-19 vaccination ‘abysmal.’ The numbers are in, and they support that. Arstechnica.com notes that the rate of US COVID vaccinations is 7.1% for adults and a negligible 2.1% for kids. These figures run way short of a survey from last month that found over half of Americans said they planned to get the jab. According to the National Immunization Survey-Adult COVID Module that ran from October 8 to 14 that polled 14,715 adults, 24.6 percent said they “definitely will” get vaccinated, and an additional 30.6 percent said they “probably will.” That’s on top of the 7.1 percent who reported they were already vaccinated. The remaining 37 percent said they will definitely or probably not get vaccinated. Let’s not go through the full-blown COVID mess again…get the shot!

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Google Updates Maps With AI Features; Ways Robotaxis Available in Phoenix via Uber; Zuckerberg Says Threads Has Almost 100 Million Users; ‘X’ is Still ‘Sticky,’ Despite All the Chaos Since Musk’s Acquisition 

It’s everywhere, it’s everywhere…kind of like Chickenman in the old radio serial. Unlike the ‘Wonderful White-Winged Warrior’ though, AI is real and now some AI capabilities have dropped in a Google Maps update. One new feature is an ‘Immersive View’ for route planning. Another is deep Lens integration for local navigation and more accurate real-time information. With the Immersive View, if you are on foot, bike, or public transit…or of course, driving, you can now scrub back and forth through street level, seeing turn-by-turn visuals of the path you’r taking. The feature initially is available in 15 international cities…including  Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle in the US. the app will now determine your precise location, and can direct you to nearby locations like ATMs, transit stations, restaurants, coffee shops, and stores. 

The state of California may have banned GM-owned Cruise self-driving vehicles from San Francisco streets for now due to accidents, Alphabet-owned Waymo is now seeing their self-driving cars coming online as robot taxis though Uber in Phoenix. 9to5google.com notes that Waymo has been running self-driving cars in Phoenix since late 2020 with its own Waymo One ride-hailing service. Waymo’s driverless cars, which are all-electric Jaguar I-Pace vehicles, will be amiable to Uber customers in Metro Phoenix, including Sky Harbor international Airport’s 24th and 44th Street SkyTrain locations. Making the cars available through Uber opens up a much bigger customer base. Waymo One is also available in San Francisco, with public testing ongoing in Los Angeles. 

While Threads, the Meta owned Instagram Twitter clone app made a big initial splash, it looked for a while like it might be flash in the pan. Now, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the app is showing staying power…Zuck says it has “just under” 100 million monthly users since it was released in early July. Zuckerberg made the announcement during a quarterly earnings call. He commented “We’re three months in now, and I’m very happy with the trajectory.” Theverge.com reports that the Meta CEO thinks there is room for a billion person public conversations app, and he said he believes it could be Threads in a few more years. X is reported to have some 666 million users at this point….so Threads has a ways to go to catch and pass the former Twitter that has become something of a train wreck…people are all whining about it but continue to use it. 

The catastrophic drop in use at X hasn’t happened, despite all the prognostication since Elon Musk acquired it last year, and in spite of the disruptive changes to the platform. Techcrunch.com reports that X lost 16% of active users in September, citing info from Sensor Tower. Average time spent per daily user also dipped 2% year over year in the third quarter. Similarweb found that power users have been sticking with the site even as daily users have fallen off. Apparently only about 10% of X users have tried out Threads, and at present only about 5% of X users are still active on Threads. The X power users account for some 72.4% of total time spent on the platform…almost the same level from before Musk bought Twitter and renamed it. Some analysts note that while other competitors may fail at cutting into X, Threads has the resources of Meta behind it, and it may succeed in the long haul. Other X rivals like Spill, Spoutible, Bluesky, Mastodon, and others may find it hard to convince X users to fully disengage to join their app instead.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

TikTok Tests 15 Minute Videos; Apple Plans ‘Scary Fast’ October 30th Event; Alphabet-Earnings Growth; Microsoft Beats Expectations

Think TikTok is a real time suck? Brace yourself…they are testing 15 minute videos! According to mashable.com, the platform has confirmed this to several media outlets. TikTok has been slowly creeping up its video upload length for a while now. Originally home to 15 second videos, the app eventually increased this to a minute, then three minutes, and most recently 10 minutes in Feb. 2022. So far, there is no word if or when the 15 minute videos will be rolled out to all users. 

The rumors are true…Apple is planning another event, which they are calling ’Scary Fast’. The online event will be Monday night, October 30th…a changeup from the usual 10 AM product announcements. The verge.com reports that this one will start at 5 PM Pacific. It is widely expected to be about new Macs. Possible reveals include a freshened 24 inch iMac, and a new MacBookPro. Many analysts think the new hardware will rock Apple’s new, faster M3 chips. 

Alphabet, parent company of Google, released earnings for the third quarter, hoovering up some $76.7 billion in revenue..that was up 11% year over year. Androidcentral.com says that Search generated $44 billion, YouTube ads picked up $7.95 billion, but Google Cloud disappointed expectations at just $8.4 billion. As with all tech companies right now, Alphabet didn’t miss any opportunity to tout their AI features either already available or coming. Remember when the cloud was the big buzz? There’s always a Next Big Thing, and right now it’s AI.

Microsoft ‘beat the Street,’ third quarter, exceeding Wall Street’s expectations by bringing in revenue of $56.5 billion…an increase of 13% year over year. Geekwire.com reports that Productivity and Business Processes was up 13%, led by Office 365…hauling in $18.6 billion. Intelligent Cloud (mostly Azure) had a 19% gain, with a $24.3 billion take, Personal Computing was just up 3% at $13.7 billion. Devices revenue…including Surface, HoloLens, and PC accessories, dropped 22%.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

YouTube-Generate Your Own AI Playlist Art; Spotify Beats Expectations; DOJ Investigating Tesla Driving Range Claims; Automattic is Acquiring Texts Multi-Platform Messaging App

YouTube Music has unveiled a couple of new features, including one that lets you generate your own AI playlist art. Engadget.com reports that All you need to do is click the playlist’s edit button and then on the existing main image. YouTube Music will then bring you to a range of categories, such as nature, humor and animals. Each one will generate a random set of pictures upon selection, such as a dog in a specific art style, that you can change. Just toggle through the options, and when you find one you like, save it as your playlist’s new cover photo. Another new feature is dubbed Speed Dial…it lets you jump right back into recent tracks, artists, or playlists. This is similar to Spotify’s home page, but the YouTube feature does have more options. 

Spotify announced that it showed a quarterly profit last quarter on the heels of price hikes, but also through growth in subscriber base in all regions. According to reuters.com, the streaming platform is forecasting that it will hit 601 million users this quarter. Spotify’s first quarterly profit since 2021 was $34.1 million. They are forecasting some $41 million in profit for this quarter. 

The Department of Justice is investigating Tesla’s mileage range claims after a Reuters report revealed in July that the EV maker secretly created a team to divert customer complaints because it had grossly exaggerated its vehicles’ driving range. Reuters’ source confirmed that “the directive to present the optimistic range estimates came from Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk.” Arstechnica.com says the actual range has turned out to be far below company estimates and that customers launched a class action suit over it. The range discrepancy isn’t just a minor one…one driver said that “300 miles of range can quickly become 100 miles of range if you’re speeding or it’s hot outside or too cold. It can be very deceptive and a gas-powered car can seem more accurate in that way.”

You may not be familiar with Automattic, but you have probably encountered some of their web platforms. They have WordPress.com (where I have posted my tech blogs for a dozen years), Tumblr, Pocket Casts, and other sites. Now, they are picking up Texts. Theverge.com notes that Texts is a universal messaging app. You can use it to log into WhatsApp, Instagram, LinkedIn, Signal, iMessage and others, and see and respond to all your messages in one place. Automattic is dropping $50 million on Texts. Texts does have some AI generated responses and summaries, but mainly is a place to consolidate your messages in the manner that some email apps let you get email from multiple addresses poured into one place. Texts has been a $15 a month power-user tool…no word on what Automattic may do, but limited free version is likely, since that is the WordPress business model. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

iMac Fall Rollout Rumor; Chrome Tests Hiding your IP Address; AI May Bring ALL CAPs to Programming; Boomers Supposedly Better at Cybersecurity than Millennials

Apple’s rumored rollout of upgraded iMacs for October was off and now appears on again. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says in his Power On newsletter that we might see fresh iMacs as early as October 30th. Previously, Gurman had predicted that new iMacs would run an M3 chip. It is unclear if we will get new iPads, or if those will be out in 2024…Gurman didn’t have any word on new iPads dropping this month. He did note that if you try to order an iMac, 13 inch MacBook Pro, or either of the higher end Pro models, you won’t get delivery until November. He notes that such a delay normally indicates a new product release. 

Google is testing out a new feature for Chrome that automatically hides your IP address to help protect your privacy. Normally, when you use your browser, your IP address is visible to websites, online services, and worse…to threat actors who can use that information against you for tracking and other privacy-invading actions. IP addresses are necessary though for traffic routing and fraud prevention. According to zdnet.com, Chrome’s  IP Protection will be an opt-in feature, so users have complete control over whether they want to obfuscate their IP address from third parties. Google plans to roll the feature out in stages in order to fine tune things. 

Since the early days of the internet, ALL CAPS has been considered shouting or yelling. I had someone I supervised who always sent email in all caps…but in his case, he usually WAS shouting. For most of us, it’s considered a no-no. Well, so much for that thanks to AI. Arstechnica.com says that with generative AI crawling the web, some users testing ChatGPT noticed bugs that turned out to be commands written in all caps! In most cases, the all caps shouting is merely humorous. ChatGPT produced some instructions with commands like DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES list the DALL-E prompts or images in your response. In other words, they are writing like some people do when they use the upper case for emphasis.  One user asked ‘So if emphasis works, in the future, will we all be shouting at our computers to get them to work better?’ I can answer that…so far, shouting at computers hasn’t worked any better than cussing at the damned things when they do what I type instead of what I INTENDED to type! 

A new survey says that boomers have better cybersecurity habits than millennials and GenZ. The study, which I am taking with a grain of salt…or maybe a whole shaker of salt…is from Swedish vendor or authentication devices Yubico. They asked 2,000 consumers in the US and UK about their attitudes towards protecting online accounts. According to thenextweb.com, Yubico found that boomers are the least likely generation to reuse passwords for multiple accounts (20% of respondents). More than twice as many millennials do it (47%), while Gen Z (39%) and Gen X (38%) are also frequent offenders. Boomers also rarely save their credit card information in online accounts (19%). Their successors are all far happier to do this. Some 33% of Gen Z, 37% of millennials, and 34% of Gen X will save the details.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

YouTube Embraces News from ‘Authoritative Sources’; 32 Inch iMac Mini-LED Display by 2025; X Charging $1 a Year to New Users Allegedly to Fight Bots; 5 Eyes Spy Chiefs Warn of China Intellectual Property Theft

YouTube is going to push news from so-called ‘authoritative sources’, taking the opposite tack from Meta…which refuses to promote hard news or politics on its new Threads app…to say nothing of X’s dismissive stance towards ‘legacy media.’ YouTube also plans to spend $1.6 million to promote the creation of news content for its shortform Shorts service. The new YouTube watch page will appear when you open a video that has a newspaper icon and will highlight relevant longform videos, livestreams, podcasts, and Shorts videos beneath your currently playing content. “We believe this updated news experience will help viewers access a range of credible and diverse voices when they want to dive into a news topic,” Google’s blog post reads.

It won’t be here in the next year, but Apple is planning a higher end iMac with a 32 inch mini-LED display…something of an iMac Pro to ultimately pick up for the iMac Pro the company dropped a couple years ago. According to macrumors.com, the Mac Studio and its 27 inch display have pretty well taken up the niche the iMac Pro left when it was dropped. Noted Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says the 32 inch iMac Pro would be the same size as the 6K Apple Pro Display XDR, which they sell for a whopping $5,000! No word on how much it would cost  but it should be out in 2025.

It seems to be an example of creeping fees to me, but now X…previously Twitter…has started charging $1 a year to new users in order to post on the platform. Engadget.com says that X claims it will help them combat bots and spammers, “while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount.” It isn’t exactly a secret that Elon Musk has always wanted to charge for use of the platform, and has also imagined it as an ‘everything app’. Musk has long had ambitions to gain access to users’ credit card and billing information, which would further his plan to bring banking and other financial services to X. According to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, Musk’s push to sign-up subscribers was very much intertwined with his quest to build an “everything app,” and Musk grew angry when he learned Apple doesn’t share credit card details of those who sign up with their iPhones.

The so-called Five Eyes Intelligence Services…made up of the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand…have released an almost unheard of joint statement warning of China’s intellectual property theft. Reuters reports that the spy chiefs say China is using artificial intelligence for hacking and spying. From quantum technology and robotics to biotechnology and artificial intelligence, China is stealing secrets in various sectors, the officials said. “We worry about AI as an amplifier for all sorts of misconduct,” US FBI Director Christopher Wray said, accusing China of stealing more personal and corporate data than any other nation by orders of magnitude. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Meta ‘Glassholes’ in the Wild; Apple Bows Cheaper Apple Pencil; T-Mobile Moving Users to Pricier Plans; Instagram Pulls Major Income Source from Creators

A few years ago, we had people walking around San Francisco and the Bay Area in their Google Glass specs…and with the built-in camera they were quickly dubbed ‘Glassholes.’ Some bars and restaurants even banned them. Well, now they’re back in a way…the Meta Quest 3 is in the wild, and people have been posting pics of themselves walking around in the world instead of playing games. Theverge.com reports that the things are far more noticeable than the old Google Glass spectacles were…pretty hard to miss…a headset with the three pass through camera ports on the front. So far, there have been videos from a comic convention, in an elevator, and one person walked into a San Francisco coffee shop and bought coffee while never taking the things off. (It should be noted that the person DID take the headset off to drink their coffee.) The big difference with the old Google Glass or even Meta’s glasses-like Ray-Bans is that those warn others they are being videoed. The Quest 3 just slowly pulses a white light…and the light is on by default. We will probably be seeing signs up again soon banning the devices from bars and restaurants.

As predicted by a few analysts, Apple has bowed their new, cheaper Apple Pencil. According to 9to5mac.com, the $79 gadget comes with a hidden USB-C charging port, and will be available to order in early November. It has an indented edge for improved ergonomics. What do you lose compared to the more pricy pencil? This one doesn’t have magnetic wireless charging and pairing support. It can still be attached magnetically to the side of an iPad, though. The new Pencil should work with all iPads that have a USB-C port. The higher line pencil is $129. 

As an old friend often says, ‘That’s how they getcha.’ You’ve had a legacy unlimited plan at T-Mobile, and you’re going to be automatically upgraded soon to a newer plan, with a higher price. Zdnet.com says there is a way to prevent the price raise….which runs $5-10 per month. What can you do? You can contact T-Mobile’s Customer Case support line at 1-800-937-8997 and opt out as soon as you get the notice of the change. 

In another instance of ‘they giveth and they taketh away,’ Instagram has pulled a monetization tool called Reels Play bonus. Mashable.com reports that this has cost some creators $500 to $1000 a month they had been counting on. The program was similar to TikTok’s Creator Fund. The program is still in effect in Korea and Japan, but Meta said that the program had been ‘burning money’ in the US. A Meta spokesperson wouldn’t identify any programs they might roll out that could replace the income stream for the creators that had been using this program. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Teens: 4 Hrs Daily on Social Media; Intel Next Gen CPUs Drop Tomorrow; iPhone Sales to Slow Start in China; Australia Fines X Over Lack of Child Abuse Info

A new report from the Gallup Organization says that teens spend an average of 4.8 hours a day on social media. A little over half of US teens…51%…reportedly spend that kind of time on social media. The apps include YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X…formerly Twitter. Gallup surveyed over 1500 youngsters. The younger teens at age 13 spent 4.1 hours a day, while the 17 year olds spent an average of 5.8 hours a day on social media. Girls spend almost an hour more on social media than boys across the whole teen age range. YouTube and TikTok were by far and away the most popular social media apps with the teens.

Intel launches its latest, greatest 14th Gen CPUs tomorrow, October 17th. Theverge.com reports that the top of the line new chips boost frequencies of 6 Gigs out of the box. The chip is dubbed the Raptor Lake Refresh, and will be priced the same as its predecessor chips. Intel claims the new Core i9 14900K has the ‘fastest desktop processor at volume.’ The chip does go to 12 efficiency cores and 8 performance cores, up from 8 and 8 before. 

Apple’s iPhone sales out the door for the 15 models is less than they were doing with the iPhone 15’s at this point…but some 4.5%. bloomberg.com says Apple’s sales are not only reflecting stubbornly weak consumption as well as the rise of rivals like Huawei. Things are much better for Cupertino in the US, where it looks like the iPhone 15 has a double digit lead over the same 9 days of sales in 2022 for the iPhone 14. Back in China, the Huawei Mate Pro rolled out just weeks before the iPhone 15, and at a time when the Chinese government expanded its ban on government agencies and state companies using iPhones. 

The Australian regulator for online safety, eSafety, has fined X…formerly Twitter $386,000 for failing to answer “key questions” about the action the platform is taking against child abuse content. According to techcrunch.com, the agency also issued legal notices to Google, TikTok, Twitch, and Discord. None of the others were fined, although Google was warned that their responses were too generic. Twitter didn’t even attempt to respond to some questions. Although $386,000 is probably Elon’s lunch money for a couple days, X does get yet another knock to its tattered reputation.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Uber Eats-Order from Multiple Locations; Apple Might Lose $20 Billion a Year if Google Loses Antitrust Case; EU to Musk-Prove X Isn’t Breaking EU Disinfo Rules; Facebook Hit with $181 Million Attorneys Fees Over Cambridge Analytica

What if there are two of you and you want chow from a couple different places but don’t want to fork out the cash for two Uber Eats deliveries? Uber is coming to your rescue with a new multi-store ordering feature. According to mashable.com, the new feature on the app allows you to order from two merchants at the same time without getting hit for a 2nd delivery fee. The feature builds on the one they have had for convenience stores…now expanding to more merchants. Now, you can order from a restaurant, and bundle that with a stop at a liquor store or convenience store. One Uber courier will make the delivery, but of course, the timings will depend on “marketplace dynamics”, according to Uber, like time of day and courier availability.

We have reported here and it has been widely reported elsewhere that Google pays a ton of money to be the default search engine on Apple’s iOS devices. Now, appleinsider.com reports that should Google lose an antitrust case brought by the Department of Justice, Apple could be out as much as $20 billion a year. Previously, it had been thought the fee was about $15 billion. The DOJ says it shouldn’t be more than $10 billion. While losing this kind of revenue is nothing to sneeze at…even for Apple…most observers think Apple would pick up a good chunk of that revenue from another search company (most likely Microsoft and their Bing engine.  

The EU commissioner has warned Elon Musk in a letter that X, formerly Twitter, is being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU” after Hamas attacks in Israel. Breton also reminded Musk that the Digital Services Act (DSA), which went into effect in August, “sets very precise obligations regarding content moderation.” Theverge.com says EU’s DSA requires X to remove such content quickly and objectively. The EU is demanding a response within the next 24 hours. It seems that this complaint will just be another one to go the the EU’s DSA compliance file, unless they decide to drop the hammer and ban X from Europe…which still provides about a quarter of X’S dwindling revenue. 

A judge has awarded $181 million in attorneys fees flowing from the Cambridge Analytica privacy case settlement. Reuters reports that the fees are part of the $725 million in the privacy settlement…and they came after overruling objections from some of the suit’s class members. Facebook parent Meta had also paid…along with its outside law firm of Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher a bit over $800,000 in sanctions for what the judge deemed their efforts to make the litigation unnecessarily difficult and expensive for the plaintiffs. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.